Love is in the air!

This is my brother and his fiance at their first shower this past weekend. It was lovely, delicious food and lots of gifts! I am so happy for them. We are so excited to get such a sweet new member of the family in November!

My sister gets married this coming weekend to her sweetheart, so we will be busy busy busy doing wedding stuff this week! The girls and I are in the wedding party. First flower girl experience for them! Super cute dresses! Can't wait! My kids get a new aunt and a new uncle in just over a month's time!

Are you ready for some football?

My husband instructed my dad and brother to emerse his son in football as much as possible during our visit. He wants the girls to watch it too, but I am afraid the main appeal to them of watching football with daddy is the "with daddy" part. Isaac seems to be enjoying it though! He yells "ball" repetitively at the TV.

Shape Blocks

We are obviously at the grandparents house now for the wedding extravaganza (4 family weddings!) Mimi saved these shape blocks for the grandkids, and they are great for entertaining the girls for a long period of time. They started out building these flowers on their own, and so I showed them how to make different kinds of flowers too. We had a whole garden by the time we finished!

Texas Trio

Sisters

Sister and Brother

Hannah
My favorite thing she said this week: "Isaac, I am so very pleased with you for giving me this. It is too small for you." Such a little mother!

Genna

Her big thing lately has been saying, "My daddy is bigger than..." She's been cracking us all up constantly, as usual!

Isaac

He learned a couple new signs this week (Dog and Giraffe) and a couple new words too (Giraffe and Hot). He's walking all over now and even trying single stairs while holding on to the wall. He plays his Round and Round game standing up and turning in circles now. He is loving Uncle Kent this visit! Isaac is also eating like a horse all of the sudden, shoving food into his mouth as fast as he can, then suddenly saying and signing All Done frantically until you get him down.

Here he is in mid sign for Dog.

Nap time!

My Cue Ball

My little guy got his first hair cut this week. My uncle Frank gave him a buzz cut. I know you are thinking, "That boy didn't have any hair to cut!" but his hair in the back and around his ears had started to grow faster than the top, but it is hard to see (especially in pictures) since it is so very blonde.

Last picture taken of him before...

First picture taken of him after...

Uncensored Sarcasm

The jetlag coming this way is more an early waking thing. So we've had some early mornings since our arrival. This morning the kids all woke up at the same time and were all asking a very tired mommy for various breakfast foods at the same time. I have a tendency towards sarcastic remarks, but try to keep them to a minimum in front of the kids. Well, when woken and bombarded with requests for cereal in this kind of bowl and oatmeal with some particular spoon and a sippy cup filled up faster than I can possibly manage, sometimes it slips out. I think Hannah had asked for something and then was complaining about something else. I can't even remember what it was now, but I said something like, "Why don't you keep complaining so I really want to get you" whatever it was. Genna turns to Hannah and says, "Go ahead, Hannah. Is there anything else you need to complain about?" I just started giggling hysterically into my hands and both of the girls asked if I was laughing or crying. Once they realized I was laughing, they all started giggling.

Flying with Crayons

We flew all the way back to the states and on the flight the girls colored for 6 out of the 8 hours! Seriously, it's amazing what a couple of new boxes of crayons and coloring books will do...for girls, that is. My son was not so easily entertained! He is younger, in his defense, but the girls flew so great when they were younger too. They slept a lot more often on plane trips than he seems to do. Anyway, we played with painter's tape, 4 new books with touch and feel and puzzle pieces, my hand-made touch and feel cards and zip lock bag book, pipe cleaners, colors, sticky notes, and we sang a LOT of interactive songs, like Patty Cake and Itsy Bitsy Spider. I am going to have to be even better prepared on the way home. We made it though and still managed to get a few compliments on the kids behavior which is always nice at the end of a long flight when I am feeling like I am going to drop. Although Isaac was wiggly and in need of entertainment, he didn't cry at all. So I'd say that's a success!

Tubby Time

Or should I say Chubby Time? :) I love getting pictures of the babies all wrapped up in a towel after a bath! This baby loves bath time so much! But what baby doesn't at this age? When I tell him we are going to take a bath he starts trying frantically to climb into the tub. Thank goodness our tub is very big and high-walled! This week he even started signing the word bath. He's picking up these signs left and right. Banana is another one he just learned. The girls at this age were learning new words everyday and would pick up a sign a week or something, but this guy learns a new sign everyday and picks up a word a week, if that. So he's not going to be as much of a talker which is fine. I do have two girls chattering away all day every day. Many a day during my pregnancy with him did I secretly wish for this baby not to talk quite so much as the girls. The doctor told me not to expect him to talk like the girls anyway. Just another difference between the genders.

Did you notice the green eyes in the first photo? They are definitely not blue anymore. Hazel or green depending on the day.

Tunnel Vision

I set this tunnel up for Isaac’s activity this week. His interest in it waxes and wanes, but it definitely doesn’t keep his attention as long as I had expected. A few times through and he is done unless I am playing with him. If I try to get the girls to play with him in it, he ends up over in the toy corner while the girls play with the tunnel.

One day, I put him on one side and worked on getting him to follow instructions. I gave him things to do, starting with “Go through the tunnel” and “Bring me the duck through the tunnel.” Then we had fun rolling cars back and forth through the tunnel. I was working on the signs for duck and car. Duck he knows, but for car, he just makes the vroom sound.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life.”

This was our memory verse for last week and we continued to work on it this week. It is rather long, but Hannah seems to have it down. Genna can say it if I help her and say parts of it then let her fill in the blanks.

Here is our craft to help learn the verse. It's kind of a mobile that walks you through the verse visually. The heart with “God” written on it is for the “For God so loved” part. The Earth is for “the world” part. The baby Jesus in swaddling clothes is for “that He gave His only son” part. The cross that says, “Believe in Jesus” is for the “that whosoever believes in Him” part. And finally the cloud is for “shall have everlasting life” part. Then I stapled them to a looped over piece of yarn to hang up with their coloring sheet from last week. We did this craft Monday night after dinner while Isaac had some free play time.

This one is Hannah's. She was able to do so much of it on her own compared to Genna. She can draw, write, cut, and glue all on her own now.

Here is the video of the girls saying it together.



Since Hannah is faster and overshadows Genna a bit in that video, here Genna is saying it alone.

Here are the girls doing their morning activity sheet. They looked so studious!

Flower

Isaac signed flower for me when I opened his car door and he saw the flowers in the grass next to us. I would have thought he was signing eat, if not for the sniffs that accompanied the sign, because he touched his mouth more than his nose. So I gave him one, and he loved holding it! I got the feeling he felt like such a big boy. It is only recently that I can trust him not to eat something like that the minute I turn around. He carried it in to get the girls from school and held it all the way home too. Genna found his new love of flowers endearing!

Cool Down Corner

I set up this Cool Down Corner, not as a replacement for the Time Out Corner as one discipline book recommended, but as a tool to help avoid needing the Time Out Corner. I had the girls help me a bit with setting it up at the beginning of the summer. We put books, stuffed animals, and a blankie in a box next to this chair in my bedroom by the window. It worked much better at first until the novelty of it wore off. However, in general, it works better for Genna than for Hannah. Genna seems to just need to cool off in a comfortable spot that seems enjoyable to her, whereas, Hannah usually refuses to go, feeling like it is already a punishment, when she is starting to loose her temper and ends up cooling off in her bedroom where I put her. On the other hand, Isaac thinks it is a super cool place to chill when I am cleaning up my room.

Blow a kiss like this! Blow a kiss!

Isaac is blowing the sweetest kisses these days. In the words of my Genna, “He’s so cute, I can’t stand it!” Here’s a sneak peek!



These pajamas, by the way are a hit with Isaac. He loves to touch the balls on them. Funny boy!

The story of our life…

…is saying Good bye, it seems. We are always moving, and if it’s not us it is our friends who are moving away. This year we even had my husband “move,” temporarily at least. This time it is our dear priest who will be bidding us Good bye as he moves on to his next assignment. We have grown quite attached to him and his homilies. He is the only one I allowed to get away with teasing me about my growing belly when I was pregnant with Isaac, but even I was convinced I was carrying a secret twin in there. He baptized Isaac when he finally came into this world.

The girls were devastated when I told them we were making a Good bye gift for Father. “Will the next priest be just like Father R?” “What if he doesn’t want our flowers that we bring him? “Will he put them on the altar before Mass like Father R did?” (The girls always pick flowers on the way into Mass and run up to give them to Father and he always places these tiny dandelions on the altar before he starts Mass.) The questions were panicky and concerned. I think this is probably harder on them because of missing their daddy. Too many Good byes all at one time!

Sunday was our last Mass with him and we wish him well on his next adventure! God Bless you, Father R! You’ll always have a special place in our hearts!

Sunday Sibling Talk: Ways they show their love

Isaac is into kissing the girls now, and they love it (well, except when he has a snotty nose)! I love when he cuddles with me and pats my back.

The girls do hug and kiss, but they have some super sweet ways of expressing their love. One of my favorites is when one of them gets a scrape they would rather have sister clean it with a wash cloth than me. I still get Band-Aid duty though. One child always takes on this caring role of nurse while the other plays the patient with the forlorn look on her face. So sweet to see their tender side!

Hannah often will sing to Genna or even hold her on the couch when she is sad. Genna's a sensitive soul, so she gets sad more often. Genna will call Hannah Sweetie or Honey with a soft voice and a tilt of her head as she tries to comfort her.

Hannah shows love through helping her sister and brother. While Genna shows love wonderfully through sharing and taking turns. Both girls show enormous amounts of love for their little brother by playing with him and offering comforting words when he is upset.

Construction, Turning the Other Cheek, and a Dancing Fool

I am daily amazed at how little boys gravitate towards trucks, wheels, balls, and construction! Every time we see a construction truck (or whatever they are called, I guess I am going to have to learn their names now, like which is a back hoe or a crane or whatever) Isaac starts pointing and saying "Vroom." He gets so excited! He has a love-hate relationship with the lawn mower though. He loves it because it is a rumbling machine on wheels, but he hates that I put him in the walker to keep him from getting hurt while I mow our little lawn. (Yes, I mow now too! I know you are marveling at the Jack of all trades I have become this year. Just kidding!) Anyway, you get the picture...my boy is all boy even without daddy's influence during this critical developmental time.

However, that said, Isaac lets all the other babies his age squeeze his face, play drums on his head, sit on him, etc without making so much as a peep. It happened again today many many times at the Catholic Mom's Group. The babies seem drawn to him, but, of course, aren't doing it to be mean. He does have a high pain tolerance, so maybe that's why he just sits there. If this is a foreshadowing event for the future, my tank of a boy might be on the receiving end of some bullying. Not that I am condoning the fight back mentality, but you don't have to let peers walk all over you either. Anyway, for now it is a humorous and endearing quality. But what do I know? I am biased beyond belief. I do remember Genna standing up for herself many times as a young toddler at playgroups. Hannah always came crying to me when someone tried to push her around. Strange how different they all are.

Here's my big guy dancing away!

Zip Lock Bags!

Hannah and I made the Zip Lock bag book on your right. First I stapled the correct number of bags together on the closed side. Then I printed out a story tailored just for her from a website that I am now having trouble finding in my bookmarks. Oops! Anyway, she colored the pages. I cut them out even though she is excellent at cutting. We were short on time that day, and I cut them all simultaneously to save time. Then we folded them and slid them into the empty Zip Lock book. Then, of course, she had to read it to me while I did the dishes.

Here is the inside of hers...

The one on your left was a book I made (slightly sturdier) for Isaac. This is for the upcoming long airplane ride, so I have not tried giving it to him yet. So I can not say for sure that he won't destroy it quickly. We shall see. I made his on the computer using pictures of him and his daddy from his recent visit. Then I captioned them. I guess now Genna needs one too, right? My problem is after making two of something, I am usually ready to move on to the next project. I still owe Hannah a hooded towel since I made Genna and Isaac one. Maybe it all evens out in the end. Isaac doesn't have a mommy-made scarf or apron like the girls do, not that he really wants one anyway.

Another activity I made for the plane trip are these touch and feel boards. I drew animals on index cards and cut them out to leave the outline of the animal. Then I collected materials (in order: a boa, pink thin wavy ribbon, duct tape, towel, tulle, wide white cotton ribbon, shiny blue ribbon) from around the house to glue to card board. Then I placed the index card on top and a whole on on the bottom. To make it more durable for my rough and tumble boy, I used clear packing tape all the way around it to keep it all together in addition to gluing the index cards down. The only one that the girls couldn't decipher was the first one which is a baby chick.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part of the Zip Lock bag books, you can replace the pages inside super easily! So I guess there is no reason I can't make one of these for Genna too!

Uh Oh What?

Isaac says "Uh oh" all the time and sometimes I don't know what he is "Uh oh"ing about. I frequently (and absentmindedly) say "Uh oh what?" Today he said it right back to me while I was putting him in the car seat. "Uh oh what?" came out of my little one's mouth, and I just started dying laughing. So of course, he kept saying it over and over all the way home. The girls and I were laughing at him and sometimes he would not even get to the "What" part yet and he would start laughing. This is funnier than his fake sneezes.

Please, don't think they are crazy!

This just cracked me up, but it is a little weird. I walked into Isaac's room ready to say prayers and read stories and the girls were already in there playing this made up game...



What weirdos!

Then since I already had my camera, I thought I would catch Isaac walking on video again too.

Can you tell why he's not walking more? Perhaps, because the girls do everything for him. Did you hear Hannah say, "Let's just pray now" at the end of the video. I guess she had had enough of Mommy asking her to move while I videoed her brother.

Here's an adorable picture my little guy even though his eyes are closed...and he still doesn't have much hair!

Sunday Sibling Talk: Three's a crowd?

Having my second child was a breeze because she was so totally entertained by my oldest and had her big sister's full attention. I remember Genna would just lay on the floor and be happy as long as Hannah was in the same room. The only time Genna was demanding of my attention was when Hannah was still napping and Genna had woken early. Then as she got older and could really play with her sister they had a blast. Sure they argue, but in general are instant live in playmates. I assumed this would be the case for each subsequent child.

However, I am learning that three is not a good number. Someone always gets left out! Either Genna and Hannah are playing and don't want their little destroyer of a brother to bother them and the tower they are working on, or Hannah and Isaac are playing Puppy Chase and (both) get irritated when Genna tries to join in. Occasionally Genna is entertaining Isaac and Hannah tries to jump in. Genna resists this because she knows that Isaac will soon abandon her for Hannah's more appealing game. Aah! What to do!

I try to have scheduled time for them all to play together, but it never works out, someone always comes to me crying, and most often it is Isaac since the girls have been best friends for so long and they are closer in age which means they are capable of a different type of play that Isaac can't do yet.

I am thinking this could be a temporary thing. Maybe as he gets older and can pretend with them, he can be the Prince or the Monster or something to add to the game. But is it possible that that time is far far away? By then, perhaps he will have another sibling who can be his buddy. Who knows! All I know is that after seeing this trio dynamic, in the end, I want an even number of kids. :) LOL

What am I teaching the baby?

Isaac seems to need more structure to his day so that he doesn't get into trouble, so I am working on spreading out his free play time with more structured play times. Sometimes I play with him, sometimes the girls (more likely one of the girls at a time) play with him, and then sometimes he plays alone. Here are some of the activities we have been doing lately.

Puzzles- He loves to help me put them back in place and then clap for himself. Occasionally he gets one in by himself too.

Reading- He is sitting stiller for longer now and seems to enjoy books even more. He likes to pick them out himself now occasionally. His favorites are McDuff's Favorite Things, Five Little Ducklings, I See a Monster, and Noah's Crew Came Two by Two at the moment. These are all touch and feel books. He also enjoys lifting the flaps on the monster book. We always read two books before naps and bedtime as well.

Singing- He is loving the songs with hand motions these days. (I am seeing a pattern here. He's a hands on kind of guy.) His favorites to join in with are Patty Cake and Twinkle Twinkle. He loves to "Roll 'em" in Patty Cake and to do the twinkly stars and make the diamond for Twinkle Twinkle. He will even do this when the song comes on in the car all by himself.

Physical activities- We roll the ball or practice walking.

Walks in the stroller- We walk to go pick up the girls a couple times a week. He loves the stroller when we are outside, but walk inside a building and he is ready to get out. Don't know why, but he is much better at staying in the shopping cart than he was a few months ago. I wear him in the sling so often out of convenience and speed and I think he gets used to being carried around when we are shopping. He is heavy though, so I only do it if it's a fast trip into a store.

New activities- I am trying to do one new activity each week with him. In the last couple of weeks we have done a fine motor skill developmental game with pipe cleaners and an ice cube game.

Here is Isaac enjoying the pipe cleaner activity while I cook dinner.

Here is the whole gang enjoying the ice cube fun!


Isaac mostly sucked on it and moved them around with his hands, not quite able to pick them up with a spoon to move them yet.


The girls had way more fun than I thought they would moving the ice around with various tongs and spoons. Then we turned it into a science lesson and watched the ice melt at high speed when we put them in hot water. My plan was to make cucumber lime popsicles afterward to demonstrate freezing in opposition to melting, but our cucumber molded much to my dismay.


I love Genna's tongue hanging out in all her concentration!


**Isaac is fever-free now by the way!**

Our Morning Activity Sheets

As I mentioned in this post, we have time set aside in the morning before they go to school to do an activity sheet or two each weekday. Here is our rough 5 day "lesson plan" for each week. These activity sheets have to be things they can do on their own after I show them what to do so I can get ready in the morning.

ABC's/Reading and Writing- Hannah usually reads a sentence or two and traces it once. Then she practices writing it several times. Genna has about half of the Alphabet down and so she is moving through the letters she doesn't know well. I print out a coloring page with the letter, a picture of something the letter starts with, and a place to trace the upper and lower case letter at the bottom.

Numbers/Math-Hannah is doing simple addition, using dominoes or pennies. Hannah also needs to learn what the names of the double digit numbers are (i.e. teens and multiples of ten.) Genna is still learning a few of her 1-10 numbers in a similar fashion to the letters.

Tracing/Handwriting-Hannah is tracing sentences and rewriting them again here. Genna is practicing her name or does pre-handwriting worksheets with dot-to-dot pages and mazes. Her hand is not too steady yet, but she is trying hard to write her name now. She even spells it correctly, but some of the letters are backwards and she tends to put too many lines on her capital "E."

Saint Coloring Page-I am trying to pick one saint a week on his/her feast day and find a coloring page, but if this isn't possible I will just find a religious coloring sheet for that day instead. If I ever find the time, I could make my own coloring page. Big if! In the future, I want to start doing memory verses with them again. We kind of got away from that when the little guy was born. This could replace the Saint day if I can't find a coloring page for a Saint that week. One idea is they could illustrate the verse and we could hang it up for the week going over it many times a day.

Illustration/Creative Writing- Hannah writes something and draws a picture illustrating what she wrote. For Genna, I write the sentence and have her illustrate it.

The order of these depends mostly on the feast days of the Saints, so I move things around accordingly. I am keeping their work in a binder. Here they are!

Poor Baby

Isaac has been sick since Sunday night with a high fever and nothing else. This morning at 5am, his fever was 104 and it took Motrin, Tylenol, and a Popsicle to get it down. Bless his heart! I had to wake him early from a nap because I had to take the girls to Irish dancing class. So I snapped a sleeping baby picture before woke him. He's got his horsey and his crocodile next to him.


He is walking a lot more now. He tends to be braver at home, and keep to crawling more when we are out. Today he took more than 20 steps in a row. I counted that particular time because Hannah told me moments before (when I could not give her a report of how many steps he just took) that we have to count every time or we won't know how many steps he can take. Gotta love my little mama!

Such a stellar big sis!

Hannah has such a way with her little siblings. Isaac just adores her and laughs at everything she does. Their favorite game to play is Puppy Chase where they pretend to be puppies and chase each other around. All Hannah has to do is get on the floor and start barking and they are off!

Up or Down?

"Mom, I am calmed up now."
-Genevieve

Don't know if you can see the dirt all over her face, but this is what she looks like when I pick her up from school when they are out on the playground. What a mess! I have to pretty much put her in the sink to get her cleaned up enough to make it to bath time.

You gotta love this girl and her spunky personality! Today during our religious education time, she remember that the book the priest reads from is called the Sacramentary. Big word to remember when she gets up and down mixed up, don't you think? One of my favorite word mix ups of hers is "wisiping" instead of "whispering." Laughter is good for the soul, and this girl keeps us laughing!